The year is 1901, the
literary sensation The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is taking New York City by
storm, and everyone wonders where the next great book will come from. But to
Annie Gallagher, stories are more than entertainment—they’re a sweet reminder
of her storyteller father. After his death, Annie fled Ireland for the land of
dreams, finding work at Hawkins House.

But when a fellow
boarder with something to hide is accused of misconduct and authorities
threaten to shut down the boardinghouse, Annie fears she may lose her new
friends, her housekeeping job . . . and her means of funding her dream: a
memorial library to honor her father. Furthermore, the friendly postman shows a
little too much interest in Annie—and in her father’s unpublished stories. In
fact, he suspects these tales may hold a grand secret.

Though the postman’s intentions seem pure, Annie
wants to share her father’s stories on her own terms. Determined to prove
herself, Annie must forge her own path to aid her friend and create the future
she’s always envisioned . . . where dreams really do come true.

Rachel

by Jill Eileen Smith

February, 2014

Beautiful Rachel wants
nothing more than for her older half sister Leah to wed and move out of their
household. Maybe then she would not feel so scrutinized, so managed, so judged.
Plain Leah wishes her father Laban would find a good man for her, someone who
would love her alone and make her his only bride. Unbeknownst to either of
them, Jacob is making his way to their home, trying to escape a past laced with
deceit and find the future God has promised him.

But the past comes back to
haunt Jacob when he finds himself on the receiving end of treachery and the
victim of a cruel bait and switch. The man who wanted only one woman will end
up with sisters who have never gotten along and now must spend the rest of
their lives sharing a husband. In the power struggles that follow, only one
woman will triumph . . . or will she?

Someone Always
Loved You

by Brooke
Williams

November,
2013 (Paperback)

It is Jay Bartlett's first day as an ambulance
driver. Instead of simply delivering his patient to the hospital safely, he
hits a pedestrian as they arrive. The victim, Jordan James, is just arriving at
the hospital to tend to her husband, who has had a heart attack. Instead of
keeping vigil by his side, she is thrown into a coma and her own medical
emergency. In his guilt, Jay drops his own life and stays with Jordan. Their
lives soon become intertwined both in the present as well as in the past as a
story of love over time unfolds.

An intricate drama including adoption, love,
suspense, and plenty of questions, Someone
Always Loved You is a novel that keeps the mind churning and the soul
alive.

Monday, June 23, 2014

My weekend devotional post was about seeing the miraculous
in how God’s greatness is manifested in creation. I used for example a time
when I was rather down and I believed the Lord had put a rainbow in my
path, so to speak, to remind me of His faithfulness and closeness to me, which
cheered me up.

Is their some way the Lord has spoken to you through His
creation? Take a few minutes to think about how He has or what you see, hear or
touch in nature that causes you to want to give God praise. Take five to ten
minutes to write about one of those experiences in all the detail you can
remember. Let the joy of the Lord flow through you as you write!

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of
praise! No one can measure his greatness . . . I will meditateon your
majestic, glorious splendor, and your wonderful miracles. (Psalms 145:3,5)

I remember when I was in my
20s and driving down the road after a storm. I was a young mother and feeling
rather overwhelmed, so I was a bit down. It was one of those days you could
smell the rain and the wet earth meeting together in the cool breeze. A
beautiful rainbow appeared, arcing across the gray sky in well-defined, vibrant
bands of color.

And I remembered the promise
God made to Noah, telling him that the rainbow in the sky was a sign for all
mankind that He wouldn’t destroy them again with a flood. I love the book of Genesis
and seeing the rainbow made me feel closer to the Lord at that moment. I felt
like the Lord knew I needed some encouragement and perhaps put that rainbow
there just for me. At the time it seemed like a miracle.

Miracle is actually defined
as “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all
known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause,”
according to Dictionary.com. The Lord may not have moved a mountain or healed
anyone in my presence that day I saw the rainbow, but the cheer it brought my
heart felt like a miracle, like the Lord was speaking directly to me.

Little finite me can see the
wonder, the beauty, the splendor in creation, knowing that it takes an awesome
God, bigger than anything He made, to put a rainbow in the sky or a majestic
sunset. He’s omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent! Jesus is the Word who
created the heavens and the earth, everything was created through Him and he
gave life to everything living! In other words, everything God has done is
doing or will do is beyond my comprehension. What is an every day thing for the
Lord seems like a miracle to me.

If I look at my problems
compared to the vastness and greatness of God, I realize that He can handle
them much better than I can. Those thoughts don’t necessarily take away the
pain or make things seem easier, but it may help me with the eternal
perspective. Later in Psalms 145 it talks of God’s mercy and compassion, His
unfailing love, the same love Paul talks about in Romans 8:38-39: And I am convinced that nothing can ever
separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the
powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in
the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate
us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NLT)

A God of such holiness, greatness,
glory, splendor and love has the power to forgive sins, to heal, to perform
miracles, even if the miracle is the grace to endure the problem one day at a
time, just as He showed me the rainbow when I needed it the most.

Father,
thank You for the every day miracles and for loving us unconditionally. Help us
to take our problems to You and depend on You for healing grace and mercy. Help
us to have an eternal perspective.

Love ignites in the
midst of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

More about my novella, The Pocket Watch:

Isabel Jones, an orphan, receives a ruby ring left by the
mother she never knew and wants more than ever to find her roots. When a young
physician, Daniel Harper, rescues her from an oncoming automobile and she finds
his pocket watch in a puddle, her circumstances take a turn. She begins to
consider what life outside the orphanage could be like. Daniel’s heart has been
broken before and the attractive young lady who finds his treasured timepiece
wouldn’t be deemed suitable by his social climbing parents.

When Isabel and Daniel work side by side, caring for the
orphanage children during an influenza epidemic, she becomes gravely ill.
Compelled to redeem the time by helping her find the past, Daniel finds a
buried truth that creates an unbridgeable chasm between them. Where will they
find hope in a hopeless situation?

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

A couple of weeks ago I had to make an emergency visit to the regular
animal hospital. It was too late to go to the exclusive Country Cat Hospital.
Sigh. It was kind of a big place and there were dogs there. Okay, I only saw
one at a time, but it was scary. Mom wrapped me in a towel and had me in a
harness with a leash, like she usually does when she takes me to the vet. You’d
think I should be kept in a maximum-security facility of some kind!

There was a raw fish tank in the middle of the waiting
room--I mean a live fish tank. I’m not sure what good a fish is if you can’t
can it and eat it, but Mom said something about them being pretty and the clown
fish tasting funny anyway. (Mom made me write that. Isn’t it an awful joke?)

Anyway, the veterinary assistant took my temperature in the exam room. It was not a very nice
thing to do. I hissed—loudly! Then came the doctor and all that prodding and
poking. I couldn’t believe Mom and Dad let them take blood and x-ray me all to
find out that I had lots of gas. I could have told them that! Well, and that I
might have some kind of infection like pancreatitis or IBD (inflammatory bowel
disease). Mom just refers to it as BKT—barfy kitty tummy. That doesn’t sound
quite as important, but it still sounds sufficiently yucky, don’t you think?

After that they gave Mom and Dad some medicine for me to
take two times a day. It tasted awful! I tried writhing out of Mom’s grasp and
foaming at the mouth, but they were onto me. Again, she wrapped me in the towel
and tried to wipe the drool from my chin. A few times I got away. Ha ha! But
then I had to clean the medicine off my fur. Blecch!

Lilybits sleeping in the sunshine.

For several days I did my best to ignore Mom. I was going to
show her and not be lured by food into her trap! I finally decided to lick
Momma awake on her nose this morning to make sure she got up to feed me. And I
got bored sitting by the back door, so I condescended to sit on her lap for
awhile. She should be thankful.
Her writing was much more productive today. No doubt thanks to me. I just hope
she doesn’t get too used to it. And by the way, I am feeling better. In fact, I’m
sure I would have felt better without an intervention, but at least I know my
humans care. Now they have to buy me special food. I kind of like that idea, since I am a special cat. Purr!

Friday, June 6, 2014

Today we’re introducing an author to you who
understands the concept of perseverance. Shelba Nivens, author of The Mistaken
Heiress which released April 1, 2014.

Shelba, tell us about your journey to publication.

I’ve always loved words—the way A,B,Cs are used to
make words; the way words that sound alike make rhymes; the way words make
stories.…But it wasn’t until
second grade that the writing “bug” bit me.

“I want you to write a play pretending you are
some object,” Our teacher Mrs. Lucas told the class

I thought aboutreading in our science book that liquid expands when it
freezes, and I remembered hearing my city-aunt talk about a “milk man”
delivering milk to her door in glass bottles. Putting these two intriguing bits
of information together, I pretended I was a glass bottle full of milk left on
a porch, on a cold wintery morning, where I froze, burst and ran all over the
place.

When my play was chosen for the class to act out,
I knew I was going to be a writer some day.

Throughout my school years, I wrote stories,
plays, song lyrics, poems, edited the school newspaper, and dreamed of one day
settling down in the country with a wonderful country boy to raise kids and
write books—like Jo March in Little Women and Jo’s Boys.

My books, like Jo’s, would be good, clean stories
about families, and men and women God brought together to love each other
forever.

My “wonderful country boy” and I were married a
few months after I finished high school.He joined the army to get his obligation to Uncle Sam behind him, and I
went to work for the Birmingham News. I was writing paychecks for writers
instead of writing for the paper. But I thought, If I get my foot in the door I’ll go to school at night, study
journalism and move over to Editorial.

Before I could implement my plan, Ken was sent to
Japan for two years and I learned I was pregnant.While Ken was away, my writing consisted mostly of a letter
every night—and occasional love poems. After he came home, we rented an
apartment in the city for a year then bought a mobile home and moved to the
country, where Ken and I became youth leaders in the church where he grew up.

We loved working with the young people. But
writing things for youth programs stirred up that old writing bug and I began
to sense God speaking to me about a writing ministry.

“But, Lord, I already have a ministry to people I
can see,” I argued. “If I just sit home and write how do I know anybody will
ever even see it?”

When I became ill and put to bed where I was no
longer able to work with the youth, I stopped arguing.If God wanted me to write, I didn’t
have to know if anybody read it. God would do with it whatever He wanted to
do.So, after I was able, I kept a
pad and pen under my pillow and wrote all hours of the day and night. When I
was allowed to be up, I borrowed an old mechanical typewriter, typed up things
I wrote in bed and sent them to editors whose names I found in magazines.

Right away, my work began appearing in family and
religious periodicals, and for several years I free-lanced regularly for
these.I also worked for several
years as a writer/photographer for our county newspaper, and am a community
columnist today.Although I no
longer worked regularly with the youth after my illness, I was asked to write a
play for them—which started almost forty years as leaders of a church drama ministry for Ken and me.

Meanwhile, I also worked on novels.A lot of editors had good things to say
about them, but nobody accepted them for publication—until last summer.

Now, at the age of 76, my first romance novel has
just been published,

What kept you writing
after all this time, never giving up on your dream?

Encouragement from editors and readers, but most
of all the assurance from God that this is what He wanted me to do.And that old writing “bug” that would
not leave me alone.

Please tell us something about Kate, your heroine in The Mistaken Heiress.

I think Kate’s greatest pain came from the
mistaken idea that her grandfather did not love her as much as she thought he
did.She thought he had broken
his problem to her, and that her family did not treat her right.I used the land because the land, and
passing on family land from generation to generation is so important to
Southerners.

Would you like to share what you're working on now, Shelba?

I have a series of historical romances with early
settlers to the Alabama area that I want to finish up. And I’m working on a
contemporary inspirational romance set at the beach on the Florida Panhandle
where we enjoy spending time.

Thank you for taking the time to encourage us with your story ofperseverance and your passion for writing.You are truly an inspiration!

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Some wounds cannot be seen outwardly. Rescued from certain
death by SS Kommandant Aric VonSchmidt, Hadassah Benjamin, who hides her Jewish
identity with the name of Stella Muller, is apprehensive about becoming his
secretary. Aric, weary of war, must manage the transit camp of Thereseinstadt
in Czechoslovakia since he is no longer fit for combat.

Hadassah finds a strange mix of compassion and duty in the
Kommandant. She appeals to his kindness on behalf of her people in the camp.
Yet since she was forced into her position, her influence has limitations. She must stand by
and watch many of them become destined for Auschwitz.

While there are some inmates who believe that Hadassah is
there “for such a time” and will somehow be their rescuer, all hope seems lost
and she must choose whether to turn to the God who made her and placed her
there for help, sacrificing her own safety.

For Such a Time is
an unlikely, tender love story, but more than that, it is an unique retelling
of the story of Esther. Kate Breslin does an amazing job setting the story in
the 20th century. Much like Haman, Adolf Hitler and his followers
singled out the Jews for ultimate destruction, forgetting the God of Israel is
a force to be reckoned with. This World War II setting in a detainment camp is
a fitting, parallel backdrop.

Breslin’s characters live on the pages, touching heart and
soul. We can watch Hadassah having to make choices we’re thankful we're not faced with and feel for her in her circumstances. Though an SS Kommandant, Aric
has deep hurts and is disillusioned about the glory of war,
yet he is trapped. Both of them must face the truth, the lies and the consequences of
choices made.

More than a wonderful debut novel, For Such a Time, is a beautiful tale of love and heartache during a desperate time in our world. You won’t want to put this one down.

My kitty, Lilybits, who often helps with the book reviews, is under the weather this week. She’ll tell you more about that next week. She did want me
to share that she is glad there were no kitties in this book, since it was set
in such a dreadful, dangerous place, but said it's an important story to tell. She gives For Such a Time four paws up!

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

They say you can’t go home again and I’m not sure why! We
bought my childhood home from my parents and lived there with our family for
eleven years. I stopped there last week when I was in the neighborhood to look
for cuttings from a lilac bush. Unfortunately the bushes had been torn out, but
it was fun to visit the premises and meet the latest owner.

Why do you think there’s a saying, “You can’t go home again”?
Is it because you’re not the same person you were growing up there? Bad
memories? Needing to put the past behind you? Hmm . . .

This week’s writing
prompt: He stood on the sidewalk facing his past, the home he’d grown up
in. The wind stung his cheeks, even as the windows glistened in the sunshine. Walking
up the path to the house he decided . . .

My childhood home, but the beautiful canyon stone and brick were
painted over by the next owner.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Watch anybody these days. They’re in the moment, whether
they’re texting, playing video games or listening to their iPod while on the computer and using any number of additional electronics. Eventually they’ll be able to wear a computer on their face and complete even more of these tasks while walking. (Check out
this Google Glass demo.) After all, why waste time just walking and
enjoying the outdoors when you could be multitasking? Sometimes walking and
chewing gum seem like a challenge. I’m not sure how I feel about practically
never disengaging from media and electronics!

However, readers who’ve been immersed in electronic media
all their lives are impatient. One way writers keep them in the moment is
through deep point of view (POV). Today’s reader doesn’t want to be slowed down by she said or
he thought. No more long rambling
pages of narrative one might find when reading Ann of Green Gables or Pride
and Prejudice. While these classics live on with loving followings, today’s
editor wouldn’t likely take a second look at such historically lovely prose if
written these days.

Even readers of the
previous generation are used to being somewhat immersed in the life of the
character through media. In television and movies, they see the character’s
world up close and personal. However, they aren’t always right in the
character’s head.Deep POV allows
the reader to “see” with the character’s eyes and experience with their senses.

Here are some
examples:

Before deep POV:Moira watched as Tad terrorized Nathan in
the cafeteria at lunch time. She thought about what a jerk Tad was when he
tripped her brother and stomped on his lunch bag.

She suddenly didn’t
feel so hungry any more and put her sandwich down. Anger rose within Moira and
she . . .

After deep POV:Moira couldn’t believe it. Didn’t Tad ever
get tired of bullying others? Nathan slammed face first into the cafeteria
floor. But tripping her little brother wasn’t enough for Tad. He had to squash
his victim’s lunch bag under his clodhopper feet too. What a jerk!

The last bite of
Moira’s sandwich sat like cement in her throat. She stood, running toward the
commotion with clenched fists. Tad’s going down!

In the second
example the reader gets more of a feel of what’s going on inside Moira’s head.
While it’s still written in third person, deep POV gives the reader a front row
seat rather than a removed passive view of things. Once you know your
character’s story arc, who they are as a character and how they react, deep POV
is one of the innermost layers of character development. It takes practice, but
is a very rewarding way for the reader and writer to get even better acquainted
with the character. While it is a partly a narrative method, interspersed with
creative dialogue, it’s a very helpful method of deepening characterization.

For more in depth
information on deep POV, here’s a great article on The
Editor's Blog. Enjoy!

This is a writers’ and readers’ week at Writing, Whimsy and Devotion. What's on the blog this week?

Welcome to Kathleen Rouser & Cat!

This is where we chat about the good, my cat, Lilybits, and the inspirational. You'll find (we hope) humor, encouragement and a chance to learn about Christian authors and their writing. We're so glad you came to visit!

About Me

SHORT BIO

Kathleen Rouser has loved making up stories since she was a little girl and wanted to be a writer before she could read. She desires to create characters, who resonate with readers and realize the need for a transforming Savior in their everyday lives. Previously a homeschool mom, she more recently has been a college student and is sometimes a mild-mannered dental assistant by day. Along with her sassy tail-less cat, she lives in the Midwest with her hero and husband of 33 years, who not only listens to her stories, but also cooks for her.